


There Are Places In the World Other Than Here

by Brigantine



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-28
Updated: 2011-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-24 03:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigantine/pseuds/Brigantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray Vecchio has an epiphany or two. (post CotW)</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Are Places In the World Other Than Here

Ray considers, as the chill rain patters down onto the sidewalk, onto his coat, onto his face, and onto Kowalski yelling into his phone, _"Officer down! Officer down, Goddammit!"_ and pressing his other hand hard over Ray's chest, trying to keep him from sucking air into his most recent bullet wound, that if he had a brain in his head this never would have happened.

A few yards away a pair of Huey and Dewey wannabes whose names Ray can't remember, and a half-dozen beat cops are attempting to wrangle a large group of assorted gentlemen, variously suspected of arms dealing, drug dealing, and pirating Hello Kitty dvds out of the hazy catacomb of a quaint little massage parlor that has proven not to be either quaint or little or a massage parlor without anybody _else_ getting shot. So far, so good. Ray really misses Huey.

"I coughed up the golden bullet," he complains woozily.

Kowalski has taken off his leather jacket and turned his warm sweatshirt into the blood-soaked rag he's currently pressing against Ray's chest. Skinny as an alley-cat in his soaked-through t-shirt, and shivering hard, Kowalski leans over Ray, trying to block out the rain, but it only flattens his hair, runs along the sharp planes of his cheekbones, and drips off his nose onto Ray. "D-don't talk so much. Talking means breathing, and breathing might mean a collapsed lung and the doctors will yell at me for letting you talk so shut up--"

"You shut up." Ray blinks wetly, trying to evaluate the vein in Kowalski's forehead. Fraser warned him about that, describing carefully how the state of Kowalski's forehead-vein is like storm-cloud formations, or a tornado warning. As though Ray hadn't figured that out for himself, as though he hadn't _noticed._ He's noticed a lot about Kowalski lately, as a matter of fact, a fair amount of which he prefers to keep to himself.

Ray shuts his eyes against the rain. "I was out," he wheezes. "I was warm and toasty in Florida, but I couldn't make it work, I just... So I came back here, and I took back the badge, 'cause it was familiar, you know? It was something I knew I was good at, but now look at me. I'm lying here in the rain on the freaking sidewalk, bleeding all over cold Chicago concrete and ruining a perfectly good mohair coat. What am I, nuts?"

"We could go somewhere," Kowalski blurts, and something not nearly sarcastic enough about his voice makes Ray risk opening his eyes again.

"What?"

"Somewhere without so many fucking bullets." Kowalski shrugs against the cold, rushing now, and increasingly adamant, "I have decided I do not like bullets. I am tired of bullets, Vecchio! I am tired of drunks and druggies and muggers and illegal weapons dealers, and stupid people who let their car alarms keep goin' off in the middle of the night and who should be shot except I am tired of bullets and the department will not let me. Let's go, huh? We could go see my folks in Arizona, or we could go to Canada, visit Fraser, it's quieter up there, seriously quiet in Canada--"

"We?"

Kowalski brakes himself with a soft grunt and stares down at Ray with enormous blue eyes. He looks like an angry, half-drowned kitten. The universe is not playing fair.

Ray has learned to figure out what's going on in Kowalski's head by watching Kowalski's body language - his hands, his eyes, his shoulders, that damn vein in his forehead. Now Kowalski's kneeling here, freezing, sodden and bloody, and Ray really doesn't know what to think, except that Kowalski's taking a chance, and wouldn't you know it, it _would_ be Kowalski who'd be crazy enough to take the leap.

Maybe Ray's just as nuts, 'cause he's starting to believe maybe it's about time. Florida was great, but Florida seemed safe, that's what Ray thought Florida would be. Safe and warm and _married,_ as in not alone, but then after a while - a very short while, if he's honest - it wasn't any of those nice things. All he can really say about it now is that it wasn't Vegas. But there are lots of places that are not Vegas.

Ray's chest aches like hell where Kowalski's still pressing hard on the open wound. He hears the sounds of sirens, car doors, voices, rushing footsteps. He realizes that Kowalski has taken hold of his hand, lacing their fingers together tightly. There are uniforms milling everywhere, people _watching,_ but as he's bleeding all over the pavement and it's raining on him, no one should mind that he's holding his partner's hand. It's none of their business, anyway. "I hear Monument Valley is pretty amazing in the spring," Ray ventures.

Kowalski's smile tells him everything else he might have wanted to know.

 

\--#--


End file.
